A drive-in smash, Prom Night would go on to become
Canada's highest grossing horror film in the summer of 1980. I stress
its release date, because Prom Night truly is a
film in and of its time. Today the slasher clichs are
stale, the disco music dated and the clothing awful, but no other film
better encapsulates the essence of 1980 North America. This is a film
made before the slasher genre ever had distinct formulas and before
&quot
Disco Sucks" became the 1980s catchphrase. Prom Night is
nave and straight-faced it represents a film from the golden
age of the slasher film, before it became bogged down in the emptiness
of self-awareness.

The film begins, as most slashers do, with a tragic death
that would
serve as the catalyst for the rest of the carnage to ensue. Little
Wendy, Nick, Jude and Kelly have decided to play a little game. In an
abandoned building, each one will hide, and one will seek to find all
the others. More than just simple hide-and-seek though, the game also
involves the seeker yelling out "the killer is coming!" as she searches
for her "victims." Forget TV or video games, it is games like this that
are destroying America! Kim and her younger twin siblings Alex and
Robin come across the building on their way to school. Kim has to run
back and get a book, and Alex keeps going on, but Robin is lured into
this deadly game. An outcast with a stutter, Robin is not well-liked by
the gang, and they all gang up on her, chanting "kill!" and backing her
into a corner. Robin loses her balance and falls to her death on planes
of broken glass. Afraid of going to jail (since so many 10-year-olds
are incarcerated these days) the gang vows to never tell a soul about
the accidental death. But someone was watching somebody saw
what they did.

Flash forward six years, and a teenage Kim (Jamie Lee
Curtis) and Alex
(Michael Tough) mourn the anniversary of their sister's death, along
with their father (Leslie Nielsen). Plot convenience would have it that
not only is this the anniversary of Robin's death, but it also happens
to be prom night, the grooviest night of the year! Amidst all the
tragedy Kim must worry about graduation, the dance and rejecting
gap-toothed unibrows ("Sit on it, ape!"). The drama continues when a
grown-up Wendy (Anne-Marie Martin) tries to win Nick (Casey Stephens)
back from Kim. Nick may be Kim's prom date, but as Wendy (and a
character in every other Prom Night film) states:
&quot
It isn't who you go with it's who takes you home."

Mr. Hammond must also deal with some conflicts of his own,
since as the
principal of Hamilton High School, he must maintain face despite his
daughter's death. The unresolved nature of the case has been
particularly hard on Principal Hammond, but is daddy hiding something
behind his callous demeanor?

As they ready for the prom, each member of the pact
receives a phone
call. Hissing lines like "do you still like to play games?" the caller
harasses each of Robin's killers. He knows what they did, and prom
night will be his eve or retribution. The film makes sure to provide
the viewer with a number of possible suspects for the mystery caller.
Could it be Principal Hammond, or how about The Escaped Felon Who Rapes
Children? Then there is also The Quiet Groundskeeper Who Is Mistreated
By The Dispassionate Student Body. In a particularly saddening scene,
groundskeeper Mr. Sykes is cruelly mooned by a hot blonde
co-edoh, the torture! Whether it is the obvious candidates
or not, a stalker lurks thirsty for revenge.

It is now the night of the dance, and the theme is the
totally rad
&quot
Disco Madness!" Before any of the killing starts, the audience is
treated to a deliciously cheesy disco dance-off that would make
Travolta proud. What's that? Wendy came to the dance with that big
&quot
ape&quot
Lou (David Mucci)? No worry, Kim and Casey will show them up on
the dance floor! But with the bright lights glowing and the disco ball
spinning, the killer makes his rounds. First Kelly gets her throat
slit, then Jude is stabbed, and even big Lou loses his head amidst the
disco madness. As the film concludes, old secrets resurface, and what
begins as tragedy ends as such.

Prom Night is not a great film, nor is it scary.
Despite a few atmospheric phone calls (thank you Black
Christmas), the scariest moment in the film remains Leslie
Nielsen attempting to disco dance. It is lightning in a bottle, as the
cultural divide between young and old is captured in all its essence
with each awkward pelvic thrust. The dialogue is nearly just as clumsy.
It is no surprise the Regina-born Nielsen ended up making quite a
career for himself in deadpan roles in the Naked Gun
movies, because he certainly gets enough practice at it in Prom
Night. It takes the skill of a true performer to not bust a
gut when Jamie Lee utters the line "principal by day, disco king by
night!&quot
Lines like "for a guy so fast on the disco floor, you sure are
slow&quot
are just as bad.

There is nothing particularly original in Prom Night,
but that is precisely its charm it is a film characteristic of its
time. It joyously celebrates the disco culture with an unrivaled
naivety. No other slasher film presents youth culture as such a joyous
amalgamation of age and race upon the lighted dance floor. While Saturday
Night Fever may have indoctrinated disco, it presented it as
the seed of hedonistic corruption. In a genre usually sheathed in
cynicism, Prom Night remains unabashedly
celebratory of the culture of its time.

Prom Night is also the fleeting example of the
slasher film in its classical phase, before it was aware of the very
conventions it was establishing for the genre. The unwritten slasher
rule, popularized by Scream, that those who do
drugs and have sex are always killed in slasher films was one that only
came to play later in the genre's evolution. John Carpenter has denied
many a time that he set out to murder the drug users and the
promiscuous in Halloween, instead calling it a
coincidence. It is therefore also such in Prom Night,
especially considering that the first murder happens to a girl who
decides against sex in favor of keeping her virginity.

Cliches like the haunting dark secret (I Know What
You Did Last Summer, Valentine), the
gender confusion of the killer (Sleepaway Camp), and
the traumatic childhood incident (Happy Birthday to Me,
The Initiation) were being written by Prom
Night. Unaware of its makings, that is precisely what makes
this Canadian horror such a delight to see. It takes itself so
seriously that even the most absurd scenario, like a disco dance-off or
a parade of typical murder suspects is presented with an honest
straight face. This is a naivety that would long be lost on the slasher
films only a few years later as they became more and more self-aware of
their makings. Before Prom Night II started using
character names to refer to previous horror directors, before Student
Bodies would lampoon the slasher conventions, and before Scream
would condescend with its post-modern nudging, Prom Night
was happy enough to exist as a simple horror film. While Halloween
and Black Christmas were examples of early
precursors to the slasher genre, and Scream and Prom
Night III were examples of the genre in revision, Prom
Night represents that golden age in the slasher development.
It is the perfect dictionary definition of the slasher film under
slasher is a picture of Jamie Lee Curtis with her prom
queen crown.

Although Prom Night may be the perfect
representation of the slasher genre, it certainly does not represent
the country in which it was made. Like the rest of the Prom
Night series, the film tries to pass itself off as
unabashedly American. Outside Hamilton High hangs a flag of stars and
stripes. Remnants of its Canadian location do manage to sneak into the
film, as several of the visible car license plates are from Ontario.
That did not stop Canadians from seeing it however, as it broke opening
weekend records, from its initial pilot run in Calgary to its expanded
runs in Toronto and Winnipeg.

Prom Night may be cheesy and it may seem terribly
dated today, but it is the crowning example of the slasher film in its
classical stage. Before disco cynicism or post-modern reflexivity, Prom
Night is a simple and entertaining piece of 1980 nostalgia. Black
Christmas may be more artistic, My Bloody Valentine
more frightening and Happy Birthday to Me more
surprising, but when it comes to Canadian slashers, no film is more fun
Prom Night, because as even the theme song knows,
&quot
At the prom night? everything is alright!"